PYRETHRUM

[Performance, 2000] 

 

by InterZone Perceptible

 

duration: 10'00

 

[first performed: Skulpturenmuseum Marl / Germany within the scope of  9th Marler Video-Kunst-Preises, june 18th 2000]

in W.S. Burroughs' novel "Naked Lunch":

 

... an insecticide ... shot up by junkies ... extended perception ...

 

the performance:

 

... a "dried" trip ... to hear a scream that is not a Signal ... rip gestures out of their semantic context ... to percieve recognised stimuli in a different ...

 

... Squatting on old bones and excrement and rusty iron, in a white blaze of heat, a panorama of naked idiots stretches to the horizon. Complete silence - their speech centers are destroyed - except for the crackle of sparks and the popping of singed flesh as they apply electrodes up and down the spine. White smoke of burning flesh hangs in the motionless air. A group of children have tied an idiot to a post with barbed wire and built a fire between his legs and stand watching with bestial curiosity as the flames lick his thighs. His flesh jerks in the fire with insect agony ...

 

[from "Naked Lunch" by William S. Burroughs, 1959, p. 34 of Flamingo edition]